


If We Were In World War Two (I Call You Spitfire)

by Rinzler



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinzler/pseuds/Rinzler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the DNA lab blows up with Greg inside, he's forced to come to terms with the fact that life won't always be as simple and easy as he'd like it to be. Nick is forced to come to terms with the fact that in their line of work, death is more than just a probability- it's a certainty. They're not the only ones changed by the events that follow after.... For better or for worse. </p><p>I apologize in advance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Explanation & Some Author's Notes

Before officially beginning this story, there are a few key points that I'd like to explain a bit further. The reason I am making them an entirely separate chapter is because I believe you can only read the story- and really understand it- after reading this information. (They were also a bit long to put in the notes.) They should also answer some questions you might have about the next couple chapters! So, I've put them below.

1) In the official CSI handbook, the DNA/chem lab is placed in the center of the building with the A/V lab to the left of it and the print lab to the right. However, in the actual episodes this gets very confusing. Depending on whether Hodges or Jacqui shows up, it becomes the trace lab or the print lab, and in a couple of cases it seems to turn into the handwriting analysis lab as well. Yet neither Jacqui or Hodges share a lab, and the equipment appears different, though the view out the window is the same. (Sometimes, the DNA lab is even said to be the same lab as the trace lab. Um, what?) Since I actually care about continuity, I revised the floor plan. The DNA/chem lab is still in the center of the building, with the A/V lab to the left. The lab on the right of the DNA/chem lab permanently becomes the trace lab in this story, and the print lab is moved one floor up, making it a two-story building. The second floor now houses the print and handwriting analysis labs, along with several other rooms, in the exact same layout as the first floor. I haven’t yet decided where the ballistics lab is located.

2) This new layout means two break rooms, one on each floor. In this story, the CSIs will use the break room on the ground floor while the lab techs will (with the exclusion of Greg) use the second-floor one. (Greg uses the first-floor one instead, because he has a crush on Nick and wants to see him as often as possible, but he’ll occasionally use the second-floor one when Nick’s out working or he’s avoiding someone.)

3) In this story I'm making Greg bisexual. Not gay. Bisexual. He likes both women AND men, he's just really in love with Nick right now. (I felt like I should clarify this.) It doesn't erase all the flirting that Greg does on the actual show with various pretty ladies, and it allows me to make his crush on Nick totally plausible as well as give me an opportunity to represent a marginalized and often blatantly ignored sexual orientation. Win-win-win here, guys!

Thank you for reading the notes! I hope you enjoy the story!


	2. Chapter 2

Greg is halfway through an article on the use of footprints as a viable alternative to fingerprints to identify suspects in one of his many forensic journals when the GCMS beeps and  whirrs to life, one sheet of paper beginning to print. At the same time, his computer beeps, indicating that the DNA he ran has a hit in CODIS.

Greg drops the magazine on his desk and decides to head for the computer first. Not getting out of his chair, he pushes himself away from the desk and glides across the floor, grabbing onto the edge of the table that holds his computer and pulling himself to a stop in front of it. He clicks on the blinking 'MATCH FOUND' notification and pulls up the full profile.

The DNA is a match to... Jason Kent.

He frowns and double-checks the name, then studies the man's picture. Greg loves history, especially old Vegas history, but one of his other slightly lesser-known infatuations is the various serial and spree killers that Vegas has produced. And on that list, Jason Kent is fairly close to the top, in the past 50 years. He's the Circle Killer, accused of raping and murdering various women over a period of a couple of years before finally being caught by law enforcement sometime in the 80's. At least, Greg thinks so.

He glances down from the photo of a man with close-cropped brown-ginger hair and steely blue eyes to check out Kent's conviction history, and does a small fistpump when he realizes that yes,  this Jason Kent is indeed  that Jason Kent. 

He clicks the 'print' symbol and then rolls over to the GCMS, picking up the printout from a case that Catherine asked him to double-check some results on. The chemical in the vic's lungs is still chloroform, no results magically changing in Greg's lab, not today, no sir. (It kind of sucks when the CSIs question his abilities, considering he has more than one degree in his field and countless papers published, but chloroform inside a body is pretty confusing. It's supposed to knock you out on practically the first breath, and this girl had a full two liters of it in her lungs, in liquid form no less.)

The printer beeps and he rolls over to it, picking up the printout of Jason Kent and laying them both on his desk before he pokes his head into the hallway, looking for Grissom.

The door to Grissom's office is hanging slightly ajar and the light is off, which means he isn't there. Looking around, Greg flags down a passing Sara with a wide smile and a flourish. She rolls her eyes but comes to stand next to him.

“What's up, Greg?”

“My mood, now that I have seen your gorgeous visage, my lady,” he flirts back. Sara rolls her eyes again, but the corner of her mouth twitches into a half-smile.  Mission accomplished.

“Come on, Greg.”

“Have you seen Grissom?” he asks. “I've got some results I want to show him.”

“From the case where a girl was murdered in the football stadium?” Sara asks. Greg nods. “I'm working that case, too. What are the results?”

“Your murderer is none other than the Circle Killer,” Greg says proudly. When Sara just tilts her head in the universal gesture for  what? he elaborates with a sigh. “Jason Kent, Jason spelled normally, Kent spelled k,e,n,t. Want to start running down his address while I tell Grissom?”

Sara nods. “Sure. A few minutes ago he said he was heading to the print lab. We've got a partial print off of the vic's ankle, and he was going to take it to Jacqui and see if she could come up with anything,” she says.

Greg lets out a low whistle. “A partial fingerprint? Man, I better get in there. Wouldn't want them pulling their hair out when I've already identified the murderer,” he says with a smirk.

Sara grins and gives him a light push. “Get going, then!”

Greg mock bows and then practically bounces away. He thinks he hears Sara laugh a little before she heads off to go track down some information.

Greg likes Sara. He didn’t always- for a while things were fairly rocky between them- but lately they’ve managed to create something that kind of resembles friendship. On good days, she's like a cool older sister and his best friend rolled up into one, minus all the annoying parts. She gets his commitment to the job like he gets hers, and when it comes to love lives, they once wound up mutually commiserating over their lack of one and cursing out their oblivious crushes over a beer. She doesn't mind when he plays his music loud and when she steals his coffee she always saves him a cup- unlike Catherine, and Hodges, and Grissom, and oh, just about everybody else except...Nick.

Greg gives his head a firm shake. Not the time to start swooning and composing prose in his head to the handsome CSI. He's got results to deliver and people to amaze.  Like Nick, maybe, if he’s here…..

One flight of stairs later he pushes open the doors to the fingerprint lab with a grin. “Grissom!”

Both Jacqui and Grissom look up from the computer as he skids to a stop behind the desk. “I'm about to rock your world,” he says, voice shaking with excitement. “The semen inside your victim- I got a DNA match through CODIS. It's Jason Kent. Ring a bell? 1987? They called him the Circle Killer.”

Grissom looks back down at the computer at the same time Jacqui does. She types in a quick command and a list of names pops up the screen, about 20 long. She scrolls down and then clicks on one name, bringing up a full profile of the same criminal Greg has just looked at a few minutes ago.

Jason Kent.

“Good work, you two,” Grissom says, and Greg beams.

“Sara's hunting down an address, she should have it by now,” Greg says, and Grissom pats him on the shoulder as he walks out of the fingerprint lab.

Jacqui shoots him a glare and mock-punches him in the arm. “Damn it, Greg, I had a show going there!” she says. Greg just laughs and twirls out of reach, then pushes the doors open and escapes, blowing a kiss over his shoulder. Jacqui's half-laugh at his antics is cut short as the door swings closed, and Greg skips back down the stairs to hunker down in his lab and await more evidence to process.

And possibly work on a few more cheesy pick-up lines. That he’ll probably never use anyway. Because the one person he wants to use them on will either a) not even notice, or b) think he’s joking.

God, what even is his life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GCMS=Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) is a technique for the analysis and quantitation of organic volatile and semi-volatile compounds. Gas chromatography (GC) is used to separates mixtures into individual components using a temperature-controlled capillary column.  
> CODIS= Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is the generic term used to describe the FBI's program of support for criminal justice DNA databases as well as the software used to run these databases.


	3. Chapter 3

Half an hour later Grissom walks into the DNA lab. “What did you do with the nail clippers?” he says by way of introduction, barely glancing up from his clipboard.

“Uh, right over here,” Greg replies, leaning over to grab the bag holding them from a nearby table. “Figured it wasn't high priority since I already ID'ed the semen on the victim..” he trails off, making it a question, nervously passing the bag from hand to hand.

Grissom looks up from his clipboard at Greg with glasses half-lowered down his nose, in what is obviously supposed to be an intimidating gesture. It works. He looks like a particularly stern librarian.

“Well, that only proves that they had sex. The nail clippers can place Jason Kent at the murder scene,” Grissom says. Greg glances down to the bag he's awkwardly holding in his left hand and back up. 

“His nails, her DNA, traces at the booth, et cetera?” Grissom continues, sounding a bit impatient.

Greg sighs inwardly as he figures out where Grissom is going with this. 

“Killer, victim, location,” he says, nodding his head to each word like beats in a song. One of these days he has to drill that into his head for good, and then maybe Grissom will stop talking to him like he's a kid every time he hasn't processed a piece of evidence yet.

“Holy trinity, Greg, I need that,” Grissom says, pointing his finger at Greg, and walks out of the DNA lab without a backwards glance.

Greg sighs and drops the bag, then braces both hands on his desk and tries to relax. He always gets really tense whenever the boss enters the lab- force of habit from San Francisco and New York, he supposes, that just never wore off.

Or it's just the librarian look. Greg  hates  librarians. They never let him sit in an aisle at the library and read, and if he takes out too many books at once they get mad, and they always stare at him with their hands already on the phone like they’re waiting for him to pull a gun on the place, just because he has spiked hair and wears rock band tee shirts with (some) disturbing pictures.  Can't a guy just read in peace?

Trying to tear his thoughts away from evil librarians and ex-bosses, Greg takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down and forcibly relaxes his shoulders. 

Then he smells burning plastic.


	4. Chapter 4

Greg frowns and sniffs the air. He shouldn't smell plastic burning. Experiments like that happen in the garage or outside in a controlled environment, never in the lab. He's not using a heat plate in his lab at the moment, either.

He's tempted to shrug it off- maybe someone is doing an experiment in the garage or one of the other labs and the smell was wafted into his lab through the ventilation system?- but that's probably not a good idea.

He glances over his shoulder into the A/V lab, wondering if a tape has caught on fire and Archie is frantically trying to salvage it, and for half a second time stands still.

Then chaos erupts.

(Literally.)

The fume hood in front of Greg explodes, fire bursting outwards in a deadly wave of heat and flame. He lets out an involuntary yell and tries to twist away, but the heat is beyond scorching. The world around him goes blindingly bright with heat and light. He slams his eyes shut, too late.

He feels himself being lifted as his hearing cuts out, and then there's something hard at his back. His mind races and he comes up with a panicked _window_ , tries to throw his arms out to protect himself but he's going through it back-first and his arms are useless and he feels it shatter under his weight, suddenly burning hot. Then there's nothing to support him for a moment and he's just floating through the air, light as anything, and he still can't see but he feels it when he slams into the ground. A thousand points of blinding pain erupt on his back and he chokes on a half-scream as they spread to his neck, and it feels like shards of hot metal are digging into his skin.

Glass, glass, it's glass, Greg's mind screams at him as he rolls, going into his stomach and now he really can't breathe and the world is still spinning, red and black and orange and yellow condensed into a whirlwind.

He tries to put his hands on the ground and prop himself up and he doesn't know if he succeeds, and now his hands hurt like his back and he hauls his head up, blinking dazedly, trying to see. He can't, there's just a wall in front of him with flames licking at the base and I should probably move, he thinks absently, but then his shoulders and arms give out and he can't feel his legs at all.

Greg drops his head down and the left side of his face hits the floor and heat erupts there too, his neck protesting like it's being twisted 360 degrees instead of just 90, and he tries to lift it again but he can't, he can't move anything or feel anything but his limbs, buzzing and itching like bee stings.

Sound flickers back in and he hears screaming, and whether it's his own or someone else's he can't tell. Footsteps echo past him and there are sirens ringing, a mess of noise, and then someone's voice comes through, like a thunder in a rainstorm, yelling “CLEAR THE LAB! EVERYONE OUT! CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT AND EXPLOSIVE ORDINANCE!” and oh, that sounds like Grissom, but Grissom never gets that loud except with Ecklie, and maybe not even then.

Dimly, he registers that someone is trying to tug on the back of his lab coat. The skin on his back starts to twist, like it's being pulled at as well, and there's a horrified gasp above him before the hands disappear. Someone else close to him is calling “LEAVE HIM! LEAVE HIM, WE HAVE TO GET OUT!” and it isn't Grissom and for a moment he wants to be offended, but oddly he isn't. He doesn’t feel like being anything right now.

Someone yells something that sounds like “GREG!”, desperate and low-pitched, and “GREG! Where are you? WHERE ARE YOU!?” and he wonders if he should answer. It sort of sounds like Nick. He usually answers Nick, except when he's mad. Is he mad?

Then the footsteps and voices start to fade away like a falling tide and he decides he shouldn't answer after all, and he starts to drift along with them, relaxing into the floor. Something pulls at his stomach and there's a warm wetness spreading across his front, creeping up the sides of his shirt, and he thinks _copper_  even though he can't smell anything. His vision and hearing fade out again, but that's okay, he doesn't need them, the lab has gone quiet. Sort of. There are no voices or screaming anymore but there's a distant roar like flame and the heat seems to be getting hotter, like his back is melting or something. The sirens keep screaming and there are what sounds like hundreds of alarms all going off at once, but those are fading, too, melding together into one incessant backdrop of noise, a static hum that clouds his head.

Occasionally something else sounds like it shatters or explodes with a tiny clap of thunder.

Greg's vaguely reminded of the campfires he'd have with Papa Olaf back in California. They'd hike into the mountains with a tent and sleeping bags and a telescope, and spend a night just looking and listening. They didn't really talk, they just were quiet, together with the stars.

Greg imagines Papa Olaf lying on the floor next to him. They aren't saying anything, they're just surrounded by the campfire, listening to a far-off thunderstorm.

He drifts for a while, listening to the roar and crackle of the sounds of thunder.

Time passes. Moments, hours, he can't tell. The burn and itch in his skin isn't fading, just turning into a low hum, like it's sinking deeper into him. The temperature gets hotter, or maybe he does, he's unsure on that too. It's like being surrounded by a cocoon of heat and ash that blurs the world around him, intensifying to the point of pain with any movement.

He starts a little when drum-like sounds start to seep in, off-cadence and with no clear rhythm at first, temporarily blocking out the sound of thunder. Then they sound again, this time in a repeating pattern, one-two-one-two like footsteps.

Greg frowns. Footsteps?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) In the actual episode there's a break in time from when Greg's head hits the floor (from Sara's perspective) and when Greg gets wheeled out of the building on a gurney (from his perspective). I had to fill in the blank, so I came up with a new lab policy. In case of a fire or explosion in the lab, all mobile or partly-mobile personnel are supposed to evacuate the building as fast as possible. If someone is moving or showing signs of consciousness, they should receive assistance, unless they have what appears to be a life-threatening injury that means they should not be moved (i.e. a spinal injury). When Greg's head hits the floor, he stops displaying all signs of consciousness, even though he is 'awake.' The person who says “LEAVE HIM! LEAVE HIM, WE HAVE TO GET OUT!” is not abandoning Greg, they are acting according to protocol. Greg isn't moving, he doesn't seem to be breathing, he's not responding to the screams or yells, and he's lying spread-eagled on the floor with burns across his back and neck that have seared his clothing to his skin. For all intents and purposes, he appears to be dead. So he gets treated as such, until the paramedics verify otherwise and wheel him out on a gurney.
> 
> 2) For this story I have Greg getting thrown into the hallway between the DNA/chem and trace lab, not the hallway between the DNA/chem and A/V lab. Why? Because Nick is in the A/V lab with Archie. In the actual episode, Grissom is the one walking alongside Greg's gurney. That means Nick has to be outside, because if he saw Greg lying in the hallway he would have dragged him out. He's certainly strong enough to. So, after the explosion, Greg had to be outside Nick's line of sight. That way, Nick allows himself to be dragged out of the building by Archie and get caught up in the flow of everyone else leaving, because he's convincing himself Greg has made it out too. Nick doesn't know that Greg was caught directly in the explosion until he gets wheeled out on a gurney. For that matter, nobody else does either.


	5. Chapter 5

There are hands at Greg's shoulders and he wants to shrug them off, but he's too tired, too close to sleep. There are hands at his legs and he wants to push them off because he's ticklish, but there's no reason to when all he feels is a numb ache.

Sounds and voices filter back in. “Looks like.... get paramedics.... help with-... Get him on his side.... burns.... can't take off the clothing... his skin....”

The hard press of the ground disappears and his head is being moved, a gentle grip on his right cheekbone and he's being settled into something much softer than tile. He can't tell what it is, but it feels slick like half-rubber or leather under the backs of his knuckles.

Then he's moving, slow and being jerked around, and he blinks his eyes open. Sound is still muffled and wrong, stretched and distorted like it's moving slowly, similar to a recording when Archie puts it through a filter. The world looks like it's coming through a filter, too, all brown and clouded.

“Vitals are stable. He's got partial to full thickness burns on his neck and back,” a distant voice says, and he tries to crane his neck upwards. He sees figures moving around in large suits, cans of something strapped to their backs, glinting a dull orange. There's a flash of blue and he closes his eyes.

Voices echo around him again and something pulls at his right arm, twisting it away from his body. Greg moans as it's extended and whimpers again when something pushes into the crook of his elbow, sharp and thin and cold.

Then the world lights up again and he lets out a small hiss of pain, because it's too bright. It's too bright and there are too many colors, passing by like birds or pictures when he's channel-flipping and he can't keep track of what they all are.

He's jolted again and another whimper escapes him as the skin on his back gets pulled at and stretched. There are more blurs, more blue, blue like lab coats and he want to try and focus, but there's another jolt of movement, this time like he's being lifted and then the world goes blessedly dark.

A light flicks on and he almost screams at the sudden burst of it, like watching fireworks from too close up, being blinded by the sheer color of it all. He tries to focus, but he feels even heavier, like something is pushing ice through him, freezing him up, numbing what isn't already numb. It feels like it's coming from his right arm but he can't move his arm to take it out, and oh, why bother? The colors that were so bright a second are are starting to take on more and more of a gray tinge until it's almost black and he's so tired anyway.

He sighs and passes out.


	6. Chapter 6

Greg blinks his eyes open.

He's lying in a bed, propped up on one shoulder, supported by what feels like fluffy pillows. The walls are a light blue, a color carefully chosen to be non-aggravating and appropriately neutral. There are blinds across what little of the one window he can see from the awkward angle he's lying at, and the one bedside table has a (fake) generic, green plant in a generic, white pot.

It doesn't take him long to recognize where he is.

He's in the hospital.

He's never been to this one before, but he went to enough of them in California and New York to recognize a hospital room when he sees one. The bland, ordinary decorations and neutral paint, the lack of glaring overhead lights- they're pretty much universal constants.

The faint smell of antiseptic and bleach and the beeping of a few monitors are a dead giveaway, though. He wants to turn to look at them, to see how many he's been hooked up to this time, but there's a weight in his limbs that’s been unfamiliar to him for a long time. It’s similar to when he’s surfing and would get dragged under or thrown off the board, and for a few moments there was just the pressure of water compressing his limbs before he swam back up to the surface again.

_Except that’s not quite right, because this is Vegas,_ some cloudy, sleepy part of him says, _and there’s no place to surf here that isn’t indoors and ridiculously expensive_ , and didn’t he hang his board on the wall of his apartment?

He frowns and tries to move his left arm.

Nothing happens. Well, there’s a faint tingling, but that's it.

_God, is his body always this heavy?_ Greg feels like he's breathing in cotton, scratchy, thin fibers filling up his lungs. They're in his head now, too, and they're making it hard to think. So hard to think. He should be worried about that, there's something he has to think about, something he has to remember. And he just woke up! But he's warm and it's quiet, a quiet he has so rarely gotten since moving to Vegas, and it curls through his mind to the tips of his fingers, spreading sleep like a down blanket.

He sighs and closes his eyes.

When he opens them again it's because he hears a door opening. It's his. Two sets of footsteps, one a flat tread and the other a sharp click of high heels on the linoleum. He can't see who it is yet. Maybe there isn't anyone there at all. Maybe he's dreamed the door opening.

“Should we wake him?”

It's Catherine's voice, uncharacteristically soft. Normally she's so fierce and uncompromising, so out to prove herself every minute of every day that she never lets even one piece of her carefully-crafted armor shift. Catherine is razor-sharp tailored clothes, skirts and pants and jackets, perfect hair and jewelry carefully selected. Sharp angles, sharp smiles, she'll cut you if you get too close.

Greg smiles to himself, a faint twitching of the corner of his mouth. Catherine being soft. Now he knows he's dreamed this whole room up.   

“Maybe we ought to wait,” comes a fluid, deep baritone with just a touch of roughness around the edges, like sandpaper on honeyed oak, and oh, that's Warrick. Catherine and Warrick. In his room.

_Good dream._

“I'm awake,” Greg murmurs, loud enough that he hears the resulting soft gasp and squeal of shoes. “Or dreaming. Pretty similar.”

The footsteps sound again as Catherine and Warrick enter his field of vision, lingering a few feet away for a moment with inscrutable expressions on their faces.

Greg smiles at them, barely more than a faint twitch of movement, and Catherine takes that as her cue to settle into the only chair. She sits with her back ramrod-straight, one leg crossed over the other. Her clothes are neat and clean, not a thread out of place, which is weird considering the- considering the-

Greg frowns and tries to remember. He can't remember. There's something to remember but he has nothing to remember. Nothing, just a space, a burning space that seems to smolder outwards, spreading ashes everywhere.

There's a small ball of dread forming in his stomach that feels like molten lead as he looks directly at Catherine and says quietly, “Why are you here?”

For a second Catherine's smile becomes fixed, stretched too wide and professional. She looks like she's struggling to find the words for something. That's odd. Catherine always has words.

The burning space grows.

Warrick raises a hand and sets it down gently on her shoulder. The touch seems to ground Catherine, who relaxes infinitesimally and then draws in a deep breath.

“We're here because there was an explosion at the lab, Greg,” Catherine says. “Your lab. You were caught in it.”

_Oh._

_Now I remember._

Greg screams.


	7. Chapter 7

“Are you sure you’ll be fine?” The nurse asks, hand on the door handle.

Greg nods, a short, slow jerk. “You can send them in now,” he says, voice dry and raspy. He pretends he doesn’t see the nurse’s wince at the sound.

The nurse exits the room and the door swings shut with a sharp click.

A few seconds later, Catherine pushes it open again and strides into the room, Warrick trailing behind her. They hover a few feet away from the bed, looking on edge. Catherine’s eyes keep flickering to the ‘call nurse’ button, like at any moment Greg will start screaming again.

Greg tries to smile at them. “Hey.”

“Hey, man,” Warrick says. There’s a pause. “You alright?”

Greg nods again- even less movement this time- and grimaces, the motion pulling at the bandages covering the back of his neck. “Yeah. I just, I guess-”

“You didn’t remember the explosion at first,” Catherine says, her voice subdued. Greg and Warrick turn to look at her. “So you panicked. The doctors said that would be normal.”

Greg nods. He’d started screaming and thrashing around. Somehow Catherine had gotten a nurse into the room, who had taken one look at the situation and kicked the CSIs out. Then she gave Greg another dose of painkiller, and explained why he was there and what injuries he had received.

It took close to half an hour before Greg would calm down completely and the nurse thought it was safe to leave.

The room goes quiet for a while, none of them wanting to admit how scared they were in that moment.

“So why are you really here?” Greg says, breaking the silence.

They both look surprised that he’s asked them point-blank, but there doesn’t seem to be any point in dancing around it- even if he does have all the time in the world, confined to this hospital bed.

Warrick glances down at Catherine just as she looks up at him. He makes a sort of gesture towards Greg and the bed, hand-waving that looks suspiciously like you have the floor on this one, you can tell him.

Catherine steps forward and settles herself in the chair again, smoothing a hand over her jacket so it lies perfectly before she takes a deep breath. “Right now we’re investigating the explosion as a possible attack on the lab or an attempt at sabotage. We need you to answer a few questions about what you remember before and during the explosion.”

Dread settles heavy in Greg’s stomach. The absolute last thing he wants to do right now is answer questions about what’s happened to him- not until he remembers everything. There are still blank spaces for minutes of the ordeal, where everything is just black.

And there’s a pretty huge chance that whatever he does say will end up being used against him in court.

Greg’s not an idiot. Several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment and countless pieces of evidence have all been blown up and rendered useless, and he was the only one in the lab when it happened. The cost of repairing the DNA lab alone, along with whatever else was damaged, is going to be astronomical. Someone is going to have to be held responsible, and it’s going to be him.

So, yeah, he can kiss his career goodbye. Expert in his field or not, there’s no one who’s going to step up and vouch for him in an accident this big.

So for now, he’s keeping his mouth shut.

“Look, I’m pretty tired,” he says, letting his words slur together. It doesn’t take much, his screaming ordeal earlier finally catching up to him and leaving him even more drained than he already was. “And I might have started screaming, but that was just because I remembered all the, uh, the panic and shock of what I felt then, you know? If you want actual details I don’t really have any.”

Warrick frowns and leans forward. “Greg-”

“No, really,” He insists, trying to put as much damaged innocence into his words as he can. “All I have is this big, black blank. Like nothing’s there, just all this pain. I don’t remember anything that happened for a long time before the explosion.”

“You know the last thing you remember?” Warrick asks.

Greg tries not to grimace. He needs to answer at least this, or the two will never leave. “Well, Grissom was chewing me out about not processing a pair of clippers, I think. After that, it’s just a blank, like I said.”

He glances between them, feeling his eyes starting to slip shut. There’s still a lingering panic, a need to escape the questioning- but at the same time, he can’t force himself to stay awake anymore.

“I really am sorry,” Greg says, words unbidden yet honest. They just spill from his lips. “So sorry. I know how badly this is going to hurt everyone…. I’m sorry, it shouldn’t have happened….” Greg yawns, and his jaw gives an audible crack. “Sorry.”

His eyes fall shut, a slow drag he can’t stop, and Greg is asleep.


End file.
